08 May | 12:45 | Doyen 22

Céline Zipfel

(Stockholm School of Economics)

will give a presentation on 

Female Wage Labor and Fertility: Evidence from the Cut-Flower Industry in Kenya

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa’s unique fertility transition is widely documented. However, its underlying causes are less well understood. We study whether female wage employment opportunities – particularly scarce across the region – can affect women’s fertility choices. Focusing on the rapid expansion of Kenya’s cut-flower industry, which provides stable wage jobs and disproportionately hires women, we exploit the staggered arrival of flower farms across rural Kenya as a natural experiment. We construct a novel measure of flower farm expansion using satellite imagery to identify greenhouse locations associated with cut-flower production, which we then merge with geo-referenced census data. Preliminary results suggest that the arrival of a flower greenhouse in a rural location significantly increases the share of women working for wages and is associated with a decline in total fertility.

(with Menna Bishop and Niclas Moneke)

About the speaker

Céline Zipfel is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and an affiliate of the Mistra Centre for Sustainable Markets (Misum). Her research interests are in development, labor and family economics